Gaziantep is one of the first settlement of Anatolia it is located at the intersection of Mesopotamia and Mediterranean Region, the city has hosted many civilizations and maintained its importance every period of history that Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze, Hittite, Assyrian, Persian, Alexander the Great, Kingdom of Seleucids, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman. Thanks to migrations and location on historical silk road, it has very rich culture. Before the visiting Gaziantep, I had some research about Gaziantep culture, architecture style and foods this information made me more excited. Our task was analysing the street façade it means analysing the relations historical and contemporary examples. Also, in our studio lectures our friends made presentation about hot and arid climate which is Gaziantep climate and Gaziantep traditional architecture style. So, in this report include what is conserved and preserved what is not preserved and my observations and interpretation.
First of all, we visited the Zeugma Mosaic Museum which is the one of the biggest mosaic museums in the world. When I entered the inside of the museum, lighting of the museum and mosaics was very impressive for me. The most of the mosaics have been preserved.
This mosaic called Çingene most of people say it is a Mono Lisa of Gaziantep. The other impressive part is they used natural rocks instead of painting. But I didn’t like some exhibition ways. For example, they prefer to used printing where mosaics are not found. The other example is column that are given collapse effect. I think they could be better. It is look not realistic.
Secondly, we visited Gaziantep Castle which is very big and located the hill of Gaziantep. The bridge was damaged so they built a metal bridge. I think, it is not restoration. It is only finding solution to reach to castle. In my opinion restoration should be two types which are continuation of historical monument and opposite of history is modern.
While I was visiting the castle, I was always thinking how would I do restoration. I think something are going wrong. Structures that built to conserve the castle need more maintenance. There is coffee shop inside the castle, it could be different like part of the castle or it might never have been.
Our third station is old city centre that include very unique structures such as mosque, bedesten, bazaar. I analysed the city centre according to chancing function and historical and contemporary architecture relation. I think we were lucky we analysed the street façade. I can observe the relation between historical and contemporary architecture.
Historical building is modified according to changes in functions. For example, streets are very narrow, sidewalk are also very narrow. So, the old city needs parking areas which didn’t predict in the past. But I think, it doesn’t mean that lets use the old building as a car park. They almost damaged the historical texture of city. This Han name is Emirali Han. It looks like they didn’t expend energy to conserve it. It looks abandoned. There are many examples in Gaziantep like Emirali Han.
According to relation historical and contemporary architecture, I think new buildings weren’t designed in harmony in the existing building context. Historical structures are landmarks for the city. But because of the new building they lost their importance. The historical building mostly 2 floors. But the new building have 4 or 5 floor. It can be but they shouldn’t be side by side. They should try to control new and historical buildings relation for new generations.
Although I criticize historical building new function and building relations, historical building is still standing and impressive against everting for future.
Ece Kavasoglu 